Michael's Metaphors of Life Journal

Random Act of Metaphor: Cloud Storm

Hmmm, soot grey clouds are edging ever so slowly across a nondescript sky. It’s vaguely ominous but on the whole noncommittal on this brittle-cold December day.

It would seem that Mother Nature is in a gray mood today. She is disinclined to release the sun to warm our bodies and cheer our spirits. She is not, as best I can tell, cooking up a butt-kicking storm to knock us on our heels. Nor is she nudging the snow sprites to dispatch a friendly flurry to soften the frozen, lunar landscape that presides at the moment.

In short, Mother Nature seems to have put an “I’m not in the mood to work today” screen saver – aka a cloud storm – on her celestial monitor.

A fitting metaphor for the “I can’t imagine why I got out of bed today” gray haze that we all fall victim to from time to time. It goes by various names: the blues, feeling low, out of sorts. It usually means we need to do something to recharge our batteries.

There is an important lesson here. Our psyche needs to be fed just as much as our body does. It isn’t a self-propelled, perpetual drive mechanism. It runs out of gas too.

When a cloud storm hits it’s time to indulge our desires and feed our soul even if that means putting others needs aside for a day. It isn’t selfish – it’s survival.